According to Deadline, a backdoor pilot to a prospective bloodsucking spin-off will be broadcast as a later episode of The Vampire Diaries Season 4, to be shown in the US on 25 April 2013.

The spin-off, to be called The Originals, will be based around current cast members Joseph Morgan (Klaus) and Phoebe Tonkin (Hayley) and would follow the ancient Original family of vampires, seeing Klaus return to the town he helped found – the French Quarter of New Orleans – centuries ago.